Miriam and Aaron Speak Out

Three people are walking quickly to the tent of meeting: two brothers and their sister. They have been summoned. And the voice that called them was not Moses. It was God.

Israel has left Mount Sinai and is travelling through the wilderness. They have stopped at a place called Hazeroth. Leading them are three siblings. Moses, God's chosen leader. Aaron, the high priest. And their older sister Miriam. Years before, Miriam had watched over baby Moses in his basket on the river Nile. After the crossing of the sea, she took a tambourine and led all the women in a song of praise. The Bible calls her a prophet. These three have been through everything together. But even close families can fall out.

It starts with a complaint about Moses' wife. Moses had married a Cushite woman, a woman from a land to the south. Miriam and Aaron begin to talk against him. And soon the real complaint comes out. “Has the LORD spoken only through Moses?” they say. “Hasn't he spoken through us too?” Underneath the grumbling is something older and more painful: jealousy. Why should our little brother be in charge? Then the Bible adds a quiet sentence. The LORD heard it. And another. Moses was a very humble man, more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth. Moses does not defend himself. He does not need to.

Suddenly the LORD speaks to all three. Come out to the tent of meeting, all of you. So they go. The LORD comes down in a pillar of cloud and stands at the entrance of the tent. He calls Aaron and Miriam forward. Listen to my words, he says. When there is a prophet among you, I make myself known in visions, and speak in dreams. But not so with my servant Moses. He is faithful in all my house. With him I speak face to face, clearly, not in riddles. He even sees the form of the LORD. So why were you not afraid to speak against my servant Moses? The LORD's anger burns against them, and he leaves. The cloud lifts from above the tent. And there stands Miriam, her skin suddenly white as snow, struck with a skin disease.

Aaron turns and sees her. He is horrified. He turns to Moses, the very brother he had grumbled about. “Please, my lord,” he says, “do not hold this sin against us. We have acted foolishly. Do not let her be like a child born dead, its flesh half wasted away.” And what does Moses do? The man they spoke against cries out to God for his sister. “Heal her, O God, I beg you.” God answers. If her father had spat in her face, would she not carry that shame for seven days? So she must stay outside the camp for seven days, and then she may come back. So Miriam waits outside the camp, alone, for seven days. And here is the tender part. The whole people of Israel do not move on. They wait for her. Only when Miriam is brought back in do they pack up and set out for the wilderness of Paran.

Seven days outside the camp was not invented for Miriam. In Leviticus, God's law said that a person with a suspected skin disease should be separated for seven days and then checked again by a priest. It protected the whole camp. And Miriam was not forgotten afterwards. Centuries later, the prophet Micah remembered how God had led his people out of Egypt, and he named all three of them: Moses, Aaron, and Miriam.

Miriam and Aaron speak out. You'll find this story in Numbers chapter twelve. A jealous complaint, a humble brother who did not hit back, a prayer for healing, and a whole nation that waited for one woman to come home. So here is a question to carry with you. When someone speaks against you, could you pray for them, as Moses did?